My Experience as a Carer in East Riding

The reason why I chose to become a carer in East Riding has a very deep story. My mum was taken from us 4 years ago and since then I’ve started working in the business she started 11 years ago with my dad. At the moment, I am learning all of the roles in the business, but especially, I wanted to have an insight into caring as I have never experienced this before.

I went out into the Haltemprice area with our lovely carer Sue. Sue has been with us well over 7 and a half years, is very experienced and loves her job at Caremark. I have personal experience with her and know she is a great carer as she looked after my mum in her last months and days. My mum was a very strong resilient person and just wanted her to get some sleep, although Sue kept popping her head in, and every time my mum would open one eye and say “I’m okay Sue, go to sleep!”

As soon as I started, it opened my eyes straight away. Going to someone’s home, and getting them up out of bed and ready for the day may sound easy, but it’s definitely not. Especially when someone may not have the mobility to do the things that we can.
As a carer you really have to be the helping hands that they need, assisting them with personal care, out of bed into a chair, making them dinner and getting their shopping amongst other things. All the things we take for granted but others certainly don’t.

My own experience as a carer in East Riding

I covered all areas when I went out. I assisted someone to walk and it was very nerve racking thinking about the responsibility I had in my hands, being scared she might fall. This is where you need to be patient and careful with everyone as you definitely don’t want accidents to happen.
I saw some very daunting situations where you would need to think fast and also solve them quickly. You need to be able to do this as it will happen daily. This is entirely normal for the frontline carers due to the varying needs of the customers as there can be many complications.
I loved chatting to the customers, being a companion for them to talk to and make them a cup of tea. The simple things go such a long way, knowing they have someone to trust and rely on.
Something else that also opened my eyes was the amount that carers are underappreciated and on occasions treated as “unskilled workers” which is entirely wrong.

For example, due to coronavirus, queues at the shops can be long. When you have a shopping call you get an hour to get in and get out with all the shopping done. Yet carers are not allowed to skip the queue only NHS are. Sue was telling me about the number of conflicts she has had trying to explain to people she can’t wait, yet they still tell her no. This is very frustrating as we are not shopping for ourselves but for vulnerable people, people that are sheltering!

Altogether, going into this I was definitely naïve about caring, it is a lot harder than I first thought It was going to be. But I actually really enjoyed it. Being able to go and see what every carer experiences daily. It is definitely a very rewarding job and a highly skilled one too. To be able to get up every day, when every day is different and anything could be thrown at you, is a great achievement to every carer out there. My eyes are definitely now wide open.